Gazette Daily News Briefing, December 24
This is Stephen Schmidt from the Gazette digital news desk and I’m here with your update for Friday, December 24.
Friday will continue the recent warming trend, but you may not notice since rain will also be involved. According to the National Weather Service there will be a chance for patchy drizzle starting Friday morning in the Cedar Rapids area and continuing through 3 p.m. There may also be a chance for some fog early Friday afternoon. After that it will be mostly cloudy, with a high near 51 degrees. There will be a chance for rain again Friday night into Saturday morning.
A Cedar Rapids man was charged this week in the robbing and beating of Ali Mason, known as the “Taco God” among Cedar Rapids foodies.
Jwan Trevelle Roush, 24, is charged with first-degree robbery, a Class B felony, and fourth-degree theft, a serious misdemeanor. He’s being held in the Linn County Jail on a $27,000 cash or surety bond.
A criminal complaint said Roush was identified on security video. The video, the complaint said, shows Roush attacking Mason inside The Hype Bar & Grill, 1810 Sixth St. SW, on Dec. 5, striking Mason in the face, knocking him to the floor and continuing to beat him until Mason was unconscious. Roush is accused of stealing $450 from Mason and destroying his phone.
Mason opened The Hype in May 2021, giving him a brick-and-mortar front for the birria tacos he helped popularize in Cedar Rapids when he started selling them from home in May 2020. He was attacked on what was to be his last day, as he had decided to break out of his partnership. He told the Gazette had made the decision to leave the business before the attack took place.
A Cedar Rapids man is charged with attempted murder stemming from a Dec. 2 shooting outside Jim’s Foods store in southwest Cedar Rapids.
Tyson Peppard Hale Jr., 19, was charged Wednesday with attempted murder, willful injury causing serious injury, going armed with intent and reckless use of a firearm causing bodily injury, all felonies.
The criminal complaint stated security video showed Hale shooting multiple times at a man leaving the store, 812 Sixth St. SW. The shots shattered several bones in the man’s hand, and the man required surgery.
During an interview with police, Hale admitted to firing the weapon “three to four times, but claimed he didn’t intend to kill [the man],” the criminal complaint stated.
The CeMar Trail project had a productive 2021, with one new pedestrian bridge opening in Marion and another well on its way.
The new bridge that will span Marion Boulevard — near Thomas Park — is about 53 percent done, Marion Associate Planner Kesha Billings said.
Crews will be back working on it in April, or earlier, weather permitting, she said. The goal is to open the bridge in the fall. The federal government is paying 80 percent of the $1.4 million cost, with the city paying the remaining 20 percent, Billings said.
The bridge is one piece of the larger CeMar Trail project, a decades-old plan to build a trail system connecting downtown Cedar Rapids and Uptown Marion.
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